Tricks are for Kids .
when i stumble on old photos,
i always look like i’m gripping the homies and/or lovers
for dear life . or they’re gripping me ...
we held each other down in those days .
where i came up, we all knew on a deep subconscious level
that our individual survival depended on it .
so we loved H A R D
i sure as f*ck did .
too hard, sometimes .
i found myself more often than i’d like to recall
clinging to people who didn’t do shit to earn my trust —
and had little to offer in return .
especially during those advanced-stage-of-addiction years,
when a lot of other folx disappeared .
my deep capacity for love suddenly became a liability !
i can’t and won’t ever shut down this gift in response to pain but i will say —
this pattern took years to disentangle and heal .
my crew always consisted of the same kind of player .
the freaks and the impassioned addicts,
the lovers and the queers,
the weirdos and the undercover mystics
and of course the fun-loving party people .
the counterculture is all i’ve ever known .
so you can imagine how strange
this last decade has been for me —
abruptly catapulted into a demanding AF
sink-or-swim “inner” journey .
yes there have still been deeply connected + intimate + tribal + downright ECSTATIC chunks of time thrown into the mix...
but mostly it’s been a solo sojourn .
and lonely AF ✨
suffice it to say, i’ve never been a part of mainstream society .
i’ve never had any interest in it, to tell you the truth .
i was fortunate and clever enough to craft my life in such a way that i could mostly avoid it all these years .
i mean . i know how to play the game .
how else would i have been granted a phD ?!
i just haven’t had to in a real long time .
✨ the times, they are a’changin tho ✨
i feel all us edge-dwellers being called back in to the center right now — are you sensing this too?!
before i knew myself all that well . . .
i played a bunch of social “roles” ( as we do )
an old therapist LEGIT told me back in the day that i needed to craft a “persona”
“but isn’t that the thing we’re trying to dissolve?!” i asked .
“not for you,“ he said, waving his finger in the air 🤣
i don’t believe i was ever very successful with this task .
while playing the soul-deadening role of “phD student,” for example, i’ll be real with y’all —
i spent the majority of my time getting high,
having dirty s*x with lots of people and
dancing for days in dark, seedy underground clubs with all the other lost and/or tortured souls .
that time in my life, while largely unsustainable,
was so ALIVE . so tribal . so mysterious . so deep .
yes it’s true — i wasn’t all that connected to my body and don’t remember a lot of it but still ... that shit was soooo much better than this rigid, sterilized modernized society of talking heads — never but never gonna be my jam .
i learned a hell of a lot about myself and what it means to be human from that period of experimentation !
as i’ve grown and my needs have changed,
i realized that legit intimacy is hard to come by .
those of us capable of it are a goddamn endangered species .
i can’t tell you how many times i’ve heard in the last few months, “ well, this quarantine business really isn’t all that different from how i was living my life before … ”
😳 wow .
i think it’s the vulnerability
and our own humanity —
that we’d rather avoid .
lots of folx seem downright convinced it’s monogamy itself or the “wrong” partner or the job draining their life force or the too-easily-accessible porn industry or the stress of having kids ...
i hear a lot claiming these things are “responsible” for the lack of passion and freedom and intimacy in their marriages and in their lives .
and while a lot of that shit is 💯 whack ….
most of us don’t know how to have intimacy with ourselves .
THAT’S THE REAL .
who are we below all the conditioning ?
what do we desire ?
how alive and accessible do our dreams feel ?
legit intimacy with another just ain’t possible
until we’ve met ourselves deeply .
but rather than explore this shit —
human beings seem to spend their time and energy
inventing new ways to exit this reality
and this beautiful gift of a planet and …
" how can we more fully disconnect from our bodies and from other people .... even the ones sitting right next to us "
hell, someone can literally be inside of you
and the human psyche can still manage to be somewhere else .
we’ve all been there .
because intimacy takes work .
it takes discipline to really be here 🌎
this human game ain’t just a given
ie . you just show up and reap the rewards
#nope
i got “woke” folx coming at me all the time
talking like transcendence is the ultimate .
they think it’s the goal —
and that i’ve “nailed it” or something .
DISEMBODIED & SHORT LIVED HIGHS
ARE NOT THE GOAL OF MORTALITY . . .
neither drug induced states nor repetitive spiritual practices are the end game .
sure . i still haul out the crutches here and there but
that sh*t ain’t even HALF as good as the real thing .
the ecstasy-while-fully-inhabiting-your-body thang ?!
i’ll tell you W H A T 🤯
there’s an old zen koan that goes :::
” if you see buddha in the road — kill him “
well i seen him a few times, y’all .
and i just kept right on walking . . .
